Physical & Cognitive Development in Middle and Late Childhood

Child Growth

• Height and weight: During elementary school years…

  • Children grow an average of 2-3 inches a year

    • Average girl is 4’10” and the average boy is 4’9” - at the age of 11

  • Gain about 5-7 pounds a year

    • Mainly due to growth of the skeletal and muscular systems, as well as some body organs

• The brain

  • Total brain volume stabilizes by the end of late childhood

  • Significant changes in specific structures and/or regions of the brain continue to occur

  • Advances in the prefrontal cortex ar linked to children’s improved attention, reasoning, and cognitive control

Motor Development

• Children’s motor skills become smoother and more coordinated

• Elementary school children can master many physical skills: climbing, skipping rope, swimming, bicycle riding, and skating.

• Fine motor skills:

  • By 6 - children can hammer, cut hammer, cut and paste, tie shoes, and fasten clothes

  • By 7 - children’s hands are steadier; they prefer pencils over crayons for printing

  • By 8-10 - children can write rather than print words

  • By 11-12 - children can master complex, intricate, and rapid movements; playing an instrument

Health

• For the most part, middle and late childhood is a time of excellent health

• Accidents and injuries

  • Injuries ar the leading cause of death in middle and late childhood

  • Motor Vehicle accidents are the most common cause of severe injury

    • Child booster seats reduce risk for serious injuries by 45% in ages 4-8

• Overwight children

  • Causes - heredity and environmental context

  • Consequences - diabetes, hypertension, and elevated blood and/or cholesterol levels

  • Intervantions - emphasize the importance of parental involvement and engagement in healthier lifestyles themselves

Illness and Disease

• Cancer is the second leading cause of death in children 5 to 14 years of age

• One in every 330 children in the US develops cancer before the age of 19

• The most common cancer in children is Leukemia, followed by brain cancer

Disabilities

• In the US 14% from 3 to 21 year of age received special education or related services

  • The percentage of students receiving special education is higher for males than females

Learning DIsabilities

• A child with learning disability has difficulty in learning that involves understanding or using spoken or written language

• The difficulty can appear in listening, thinking, reading, writing, and spelling (or mathematics).

• To be classified as a learning disability, the learning problem must NOT be primarily the result of…

  • Visual, hearing, or motor disabilities

  • Intellectual. disabilities or emotional disorders

  • Environmental, cultural, or economic disadvantage

ADHD

• Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a disability in which children consistently show one or more of the following characteristics over a period of time:

  • 1) Inattention - have difficulty focusing in any one thing; get bored with task after only a few minutes or even seconds

  • 2) Hyperactivity - show high signs of physical activity, seeming to be almost constantly in motion

  • 3) Impulsivity - have difficulty curbing their reactions; find ithard to think before they act.

• Possible causes:

  • Genetics

  • Brain damage during prenatal or postnatal development

  • Cigarette and alcohol exposure during development

  • Low birth weight

Autism

• Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) are characterized by difficulties with social interaction, problems in verbal and nonverbal communication, and repetitive behaviors.

  • Children may also show atypical responses to sensory experiences

• Early signs for ASD:

  • Lack of social gestures at 12 months

  • Using no meaningful words at 18 months

  • Having no interest in other children and no spontaneous two-word utterances at 24 months

Piaget’s Concrete Operational Stage

• The concrete operational stage is the thirds stage, and it takes place during the ages of 7 to 11 years

• At this stage, children develop an understanding of:

  • Conservation: the idea that objects quantity does not change even if its appearance does

  • Reversibility: The idea that some things can be returned to their original state after being changed

  • Classification: the ability to categorize objects based on similarities, shape, or color.

    • Seriation: ability to order stimuli along a quantitative dimension

    • Transitivity: ability to logically combine relations to understand certain conclusions

Memory

• Short-term memory is a passive storehouse that stores information until it is moved to long-term memory, or it is discarder.

  • Increases during early childhood but not much more after the age of 7

• Long-term memory is a relatively permanent and unlimited type of memory.

  • Increases with age during middle and late childhood.

• Improved in memory reflect children’s increased knowledge and their increased use of strategies

  • Not just considering the amount of information, but rather how it is retained and retrieved for a later use

Knowledge and Expertise

• Much of the research on the role of knowledge in memory has compared experts and novices

  • Experts have acquired extensive knowledge about a particular content area

  • This influences what they notice and how they organize, represent, and interpret information.

One Study Found

• 10- annd 11-year-olds who were experienced chess players (experts) were able to remember more information about the location of chess pieces on a board that college students who were not chess players (novices).

• However, when presented with other stimuli, the college students remembered them better than the children

• Thus, the children’s expertise in chess gave them superior memories, but only in chess-related stimuli

Strategies

• The following are effective strategies that adults can share with children to help them improve their information processing skills.

  • Advise children to elaborate on what is to be remembered

    • Elaboration involves engaging in more extensive processing of information

  • Encourage children to engage in mental imagery

    • Mental imagery helps to remember pictures, but also to solidify concepts encoded as verbal information

  • Motivate children to remember material by understanding it rather than by memorizing it.

    • Understand it, give it meaning, elaborate it, and personalize it so it’s easier to retrieve.

Language Development

• Children learn new skills as they enter school that make it possible for them to learn to read and write

• There skills include:

  • Increased use of language to talk about things that are not physically present

  • Leaning what a word is

  • Learning how to recognize and talk about sounds

Evidence of Language Development

• Changes occur in the way children’s mental vocabulary is organized

• When asked to say the first thing that comes to mind when they hear a word…

  • Preschool children typically provide a words that often follows the word in a sentence

  • After 7, children begin to respond with a word that is the same part of speech as the stimulus word.

• Example: “dog”

  • Young children are likely to respond with '“bark”

  • Older children are likely to respsond with “cat”

Reading

• Vocabulary development plays an important role in reading comprehension

  • Children who begin elementary school with a robust vocabulary have an advantage in learning to read

• The phonics approach emphasizes that reading instruction should teach basic rules for translating written symbols into sounds

  • In English, the letter “A” can make up to 9 different sounds

  • Teaching children that “A” is for “Apple” can be confusing as they begin to read

Writing

• As they ebgin to write, children often invent spellings

• Parents and teachers should encourage childrne’s early writing but not be overly concerned about the formation of letters and spelling.

  • Correction should be selective and mad ein a positive way

• Becoming a good writer, much like becoming a good reader, takes many years and lots of practice